The Chris Moeller Archives

The Top 50 TV Shows of All-Time: #2

#2-"THE SOPRANOS" HBO 1999-2007
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A lot of nice things have been said about "The Sopranos" over the last decade. Shortly after it debuted, a New York Times critic called it "the greatest work of American popular culture of the last quarter century." The New Yorker called it "the richest achievement in the history of television." What does that leave one to say about it? Perhaps that it revolutionized dramatic storytelling on TV to such a degree that I could find only five dramatic shows that debuted before it to put on the Top 50 countdown. That's more than a half-century of dramatic American television series almost completely slighted. "The Sopranos" saga of family, organized crime, and psychiatry was such an explosion of ambition in the realm of complex storytelling, that-- and this next part is harsh-- Americans seemed to have lost their collective interest in all of the dramatic series that came before it-- "Perry Mason," "Dr. Kildare," "Marcus Welby M.D.," Gunsmoke," "Bonanza," "The Waltons," "Medical Center," "Hawaii 5-0," "Dallas," "Dynasty," and "E.R.," even "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere," which both made it onto this countdown. Great as they may have been, they're slipping rapidly from the national consciousness now. We look at them differently after "The Sopranos." On the no-holds-barred premium cable network Home Box Office, "The Sopranos" rewrote the rules of dramatic fiction. Storylines deepened, yet often meandered, and sometimes completely faded. Salon's Rebecca Traister called it "an opera on the turnpike that was simultaneously lush and spare in its depiction of American life." It could be enjoyed for both its timeless, ecumenical themes and its tiny moments of individual absurdity. Tony Soprano's family and crew were a completely distinct subculture of people living in the United States, yet were universally American. Nearly as compelling, the cinematic "Deadwood," "The Wire," "Six Feet Under," "Big Love," "Mad Men" (penned by "Sopranos" scribe Matthew Weiner), "True Blood," and "Dexter" are all children of "The Sopranos" in that they are the singular artistic visions of television writers who enjoy unprecedented freedom to create outside the dictates of network executives. "The Sopranos" creator David Chase produced such an historic, revolutionary, and profitable series that for the first time in the medium's history, a handful of network people surrendered artistic control to the artists. The Tony Soprano character lamented early in the series that "It's good to be in on something from the ground floor, but lately I feel like I'm coming in at the end." Tony had nothing to worry about, though, from the perspective of his place in television. More and more, his series feels as if it was itself the ground floor. As the critic Traister pointed out, we will have better shows to watch in the future because of it. For that reason, it seems slightly pessimistic, even inconsistent, to declare it the best show in the history of TV. So how about #2?

posted by CM @ 9:00 PM